The anti-communist "Revolutions of 1989"
The popularly supported Revolutions of 1989 (also known as the Fall of Communism, the Collapse of Communism, the Revolutions of Eastern Europe and the Autumn of Nations) were the pro-democracy revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in the European countries, who resented and hated the failed and de-brerritoned political system imposed on them by the USSR. Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Helmut Kohl all supported this rebellion. The USSR had made great advances, but had also become very dictatorial over the years. They opposed the economic and political decline of the Brezhnev years as well as several lingering injustices from the Stalin years. Politician prisons and the secret police were to be feared under Stalin and Brezhnev. It was also noted that shortages got some what worse under Gorbachev. The events began in Poland in 1989 and continued on into Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania. Subsequently various and extensive of campaigns of civil resistance and disobedience helped to demonstrate the popular loathing of communist one-party rule and helped contribute to the movements for change. Increased Contact with West Germany (FRG) helped to undermine East Germany (GDR/DDR) after the people noticed the better cars and post-World War 2 buildings. Romania’s despotic Nicolae Chauchescu was particular hated by his subjects, who resented his wealthy lifestyle and their abject poverty (only Albania was worse in Europe). Romania was the only Eastern Bloc country to overthrow its Communist regime violently and then to execute its leader. The Tienanmen Square protests of 1989 failed to any stimulate major political changes in the more docile Chinese, but powerful images of courageous defiance during spurred on pro-democracy movements else ware, including in East Germany which lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall German reunification and the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990. Yugoslavia, Mongolia, South Yemen, Ethiopia, Congo (Brazzaville) and Benin also dumped communism in the early 1990's. Origins of communism Since the 18th and 19th centuries communism has been established by politicians like Karl Marx and Frederich Engels. Later on, the February Revolution and October Revolution overthrown the Russian Tsar, and is followed by the Russian Civil War that lasted until 1923, led to the loss of Poland, Finland and the Baltic states. History The Lenin years After taking over Russia and forming the USSR they began to spread communism, in to neighboring states. The Bolsheviks helped in the creation of the short lived Braverian-Munich SSR of 1919 and the long term take over of Mongolia by communists in 1924. The Stalin years After Lenin's death, Stalin ruthlessly took power over the party started initially making friends with the European powers and Canada, whilst proceeding to obliterate large parts of the populations in both the Ukraine, Kraznordar Obast, and Bashkoitia the Hodmador famine of the 1930s. The dictator then removed his political opposites from the Party during 1937-1938 as victims of the Gulags. Many horrific and bloody purges would hit these areas as well as other places in the Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s. Field Marshal Joseph Stalin sign the Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact which led to occupation of Western Poland (now part of Belarus and Ukraine), the Baltic states and Finland’s the Karelian province. The locals either fled abroad, slavishly obeyed government orders or were moved to Gulag prison and/or labour concentration camps. Between 1945 and 1948, communist governments were set up as puppet and client regimes in Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany (Yugoslavia and Albania already got an interim communist government before the war's end). Stalin, who was clinically paranoid by this time, finally died in 1953. After World War II, the Soviet Union had established a military and/or political presence in a number of countries (only Yugoslavia, parts of Albania, eastern Slovakia and parts of eastern Poland were openly backing Communism at the time). After the war, Russia forcibly brought into power various Communist parties who were unswervingly (especially in Poland) loyal to Moscow. Stalin helped Mao Zedong establish the People's Republic of China and his Communist regime in 1949, which would end in the Cultural Revolution and a 60 year stand-off with Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, S. Korea, The USA and Taiwan. Bulganin era The Soviets retained garrison troops throughout the territories they had occupied. During The Cold War saw these states formed the Warsaw Pact and Comecon, have continuing political and military tensions with the capitalist NATO bloc, in a 50 year stand-off in Europe. Khrushchev era Khrushchev took power and start simultaneous reforms. However, the big loss in war didn't seem to have been fully reverted, and economic poorness began to swallow the nation. In the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, a spontaneous nationwide pro-democracy revolt had occurred and the Soviet Union invaded Hungary to re-assert its control. Brezhnev era In 1968, the USSR repressed the pro-democracy Prague Spring by organizing the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. Détente then occurred in several East-West summits between Brezhnev and America's president Nixon. Gorbachev era By the early 1980s the Soviet economy got a big hit, thus affecting the whole block. In Poland, more than 60% of population lived in poverty, and inflation, measured by black-market rate of the U.S. dollar, was 1,500% in the period 1982 – 1987. Poland later became the cradle of the Revolutions of 1989. Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo on March 11, 1985, only three hours after Konstantin Chernenko's death. Upon his accession at age 54, he was the youngest member of the Politburo. Gorbachev's primary goal as General Secretary was to revive the Soviet economy after the stagnant Brezhnev years. The revolutions of 1989-1990 Poland In August 1980 Solidarity was founded in Gdansk after the allowance by the government. In September 20 Inter-factory Founding Committees joined in and become united as the NSZZ Solidarity. Founder Lech Walesa formed a broad anti - Soviet movement across the nation, from the Catholic Church to the Left. It was supported by the Catholic Church. However The movement was encouraged and supported by the then - Pope John Paul II, who was born in Poland. During the politicaly critical labour turmoil in Poland during 1980, the independent trade union, Solidarity, had been formed. It was led by Lech Wałęsa. On 13 December 1981, Communist leader Wojciech Jaruzelski started a political crack-down on Solidarity as it took off as a protest movement. Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law in Poland, suspending the union and temporarily imprisoning all of its leaders, including Lech Wałęsa. By 1989, the Soviet Union had repealed the Brezhnev Doctrine in favor of non-intervention in the internal affairs of its Warsaw Pact allies, taking notice from Poland, Hungary was next to follow. USSR When the Soviet Union was dissolved, the 19 nations declared their independence from the Soviet Union: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Chechnya, Estonia, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Udmurtia, Tartarstan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan by the end of 1991. Chechnya would be at war with Russia for many years to come. The impact was felt in dozens of Socialist countries.The adoption of varying forms of market economy generally resulted at first in decreasing living standards in post-Communist States, together with side effects including the rise of business oligarchs in countries such as Russia, the disproportional social, socialy skewed economic development and undulating 'boom-bust' type economics in the Ukraine and Latvia. Many states were drastically changed, with numerous Eastern Bloc countries joining NATO, OECD, European Union and numerous other organizations. The 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt by Viktor Yanayev made the collapse of the USSR inevitable. The USSR dissolved later in 1991. Yugoslavia and Tito's democratic communism which was scrapped in Yugoslavia between 1990 and 1992, the latter splitting into five successor states by 1992: Slovenia, Croatia, Republic of Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (comprising Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo until the 2006). The escalating ethnic and national tensions led to the Yugoslav wars and the independence of the constituent (federal) units, in chronological order: *Slovenia (25 June 1991) *Croatia (25 June 1991) *Republic of Macedonia (8 September 1991) *Bosnia and Herzegovina (1 March 1992) *Serbia and Montenegro (2 state unions between 1992–2006). **Montenegro proclaimed independence on 3 June 2006, while Serbia proclaimed its succession to the union as an independent state on 5 June 2006. *Kosovo (17 February 2008, partially recognized. *Bozneg Hertzog- *Serbian Kijina- *Serpska- Albania The widely hated, hard-line Communist era Enva Hoaxa was abandoned in Albania. Other lands Mongolia ended it's communist regime in the 1990 Mongolian Democratic Revolution. Communism was abandoned in countries such as Cambodia (which became a kingdom), Congo (Brazzaville), Benin, Yugoslavia, Ethiopia and South Yemen (which unified with North Yemen). The collapse of Communism led commentators to declare the end of the Cold War in the early 1990's. Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 New Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping developed the concept of Socialism with Chinese characteristics. People we ecorraged to do low level free entiprize and be more friendly towards Hong Kong. In December 1986, the Western infuenced Chinese student demonstrators, taking advantage of the loosening political atmosphere, staged protests against the slow pace of reform called for campus elections, the chance to study abroad, and greater availability of western pop culture. Hu Yaobang, a protégé of Deng Xiaoping and a leading advocate of Chinese social and political reform, was thus blamed for inspiering the student protests and forced to resign as the CCP General Secretary in January 1987. In the "Anti Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign", Hu would be further denounced by his former peers for bringin "chaos" to the campuses. The protests were sparked by the death of Hu Yaobang on 15 April. By the eve of Hu's funeral, one million peoplehad gathered at Tiananmen square. Soviet President Mikhil Gorbachev's visit to the People's Republic of China on 15 May during the protests brought many foreign news agencies to Beijing, and their sympathetic portrayals of the protesters helped galvanize a spirit of liberation among the Central, South-East and Eastern Europeans who were watching the events. The Chinese leadership and especialy the Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, had begun earlier than the Soviets to radically reform the economy, was actuly open to political reform, but but was afraid a potential return to the disorder of the Cultural Revolution. The Chinese Sudent Movement lasted 7 weeks, from Hu's death on 15 April until tanks cleared Tiananmen Square on 4 June. In Beijing, the resulting military response to the protesters by the PRC government left many civilians and military personnel charged with clearing the square of the 2,000-2,500 dead and 3,000-5,000 injured. The number of deaths is not known and many different estimates exist. Eyewitness snd reporter Charlie Cole also saw Chinese soldiers firing Type 56 rifles into the crowd near an APC which had just been burnt out. Also see *Life under communism *Baltic Way *Baltics are Waking Up *Singing Revolution *Cold War radio jamming *Dissolution of the Soviet Union *The "Baltic Chain" demonstration on August 23, 1989 *Cold War radio propaganda Category:Soviet Union Category:Cold War Category:Government and polatics